


Yearning

by namaramac



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: F/F, mostly just Feelings, no beta reading we die like women, social distancing made me a fic author, takes place during to steal or not to steal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23324635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/namaramac/pseuds/namaramac
Summary: If it was Sheena in her place, she would have laughed and walked away. If the roles were reversed, she would have cut Carmen into pieces. But it wasn’t her, it was Carmen.
Relationships: Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep/Tigress | Sheena
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	Yearning

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you have to make the content you want to see yourself

_“Sometimes I still miss you.”_

Carmen hadn’t expected her to be able to climb the rope so quickly, it’s obvious in the way that her back is turned, how she’d been walking away silently, sure to turn a corner before Sheena would get out, but cats are fast climbers and despite everything Sheena’s code name did have meaning behind it.

Or maybe Carmen hadn’t forgotten, and she expected her to just leave her alone because it wasn’t like Sheena liked spending time with her when they were on the same side, much less opposing ones, even if she was working for VILE again.

Or maybe Carmen hadn’t put that much thought into it, because why would she?

Either way, Sheena had spoken.

Even though it was almost against her own will, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could think to stop them. Even though she made a last-ditch attempt to control her tone, to make it cold and cutting like Brunt often attempted to with remarks about family and how they didn’t betray one another. But it hadn’t come out scathing, it had come out quiet, barely above a whisper, and almost tender in its sincerity.

And true, maybe Sheena could have saved herself by leaving then and there, maybe she could have used Carmen’s predisposition for feeling, for _caring_ , against her, but she stayed and stared as the woman in red tensed but did not turn around. And then? She waited.

She waited because some part of her wanted to. The part of her that was expectant and tender even after years of hardship and literal lessons in cruelty. The part of her that had managed to be shrunk down to almost nothing but was still there. The part of her that still hoped and cared and yearned. (Yearned? Was she yearning after Carmen? Never had a word felt more wrong or more right).

If it was Sheena in her place, she would have laughed and walked away. If the roles were reversed, she would have cut Carmen into pieces. But it wasn’t her, it was Carmen.

_“I miss you too.”_

She had spoken it into the empty air in front of her, letting the cave walls carry the message back to her, and once it was done Carmen did not turn around, something Sheena was grateful for because if she had one of them would have surely broken and Sheena had no way of knowing whether or not that would be her. No, Carmen just stood still, her back still facing Sheena, silent. Maybe waiting. Maybe yearning. Maybe not.

And the simplicity of it was all of a sudden too much. The unabashed caring in it. The sheer fact that she dignified the statement with a response despite the cruelty with which Sheena operated. The kindness, coupled with the fact that it was honest, it was all so unexpected and undeserved that it sent a myriad of emotions blooming and then dying in Sheena’s heart. 

So she nodded, because she had to acknowledge it somehow and Sheena couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to, there was too much emotion and she would have choked on the words in her throat. So she just nodded, ever so slightly, and that nod was a promise, an agreement, an apology, it was something, even if Carmen couldn’t see it.

And so the silence continued on, filled with so much sentiment and emotion that it was almost painful, almost wounding. And yet the softest, weakest, least jaded part of her was the part that made her stay, that made her endure the suffering it had caused.

_“Goodbye, Tigress.”_

And just like that the silence had ended and with it went the pain it had caused, though the finality of the statement, everything it carried with it, everything it neglected to say, all of it left a new pain, a stronger, more permanent one. But a livable one, if only because she had to live with it.

And Carmen was already around the corner, already out of sight, her footsteps fading down the hall, but Sheena responded anyways, so softly and quietly that Carmen would have to feel it more than hear it.

 _“Goodbye”,_ Sheena said, and didn’t mean it at all, but then again, neither had she.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written a fic and actually bothered to finish and/or publish it and it probably reads that way lmao


End file.
